[B-Greek] Gender

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Fri May 18 14:20:18 EDT 2007


I appreciate James' argument as a point-of-view matter. I don't agree  
that natural gender is a subset. Grammatical gender seems to be an  
extension of the natural, if I may use "extension" somewhat loosely.

Don Wilkins

On May 18, 2007, at 6:25 AM, frjsilver at optonline.net wrote:

> Dear Friends --
>
> It seems we're back to my original description of grammatical  
> gender as being four-fold:  masculine, feminine, both, neither.
>
> When biological sex (male or female) -- as distinct from  
> grammatical gender -- overlaps grammatical gender, as when  
> 'mother' (female) is referenced by 'she' (feminine), we have an  
> example of natural gender as a subset of grammatical gender, ne  
> c'est pas?
>
> But in Chinese and Turkish, e.g., the third-person singular pronoun  
> serves as an undifferentiated referent for both male and female  
> creatures (including human beings) as well as for inanimate  
> objects.  In such languages, concepts of 'gender' which we native  
> speakers of one or another form of Modern English (or Greek, for  
> that matter) instinctively seek must be gleaned from context  
> (syntax) rather than grammar.
>
> The same is true in English with regard to number, especially with  
> 'who', 'you' and a few other pronominal referents.  I've long  
> suspected that such words retain their possessive and objective  
> case-specific inflections even now, along with (in some cases)  
> rather differently formed plurals, while the rest of English's  
> nouns retain only vestigial case markers such as possessive _'s_  
> and plural _s_.  Mostly.  Greek isn't the only language with  
> exceptions to nearly every perceived 'rule' of construction!
>
> Peace and blessings to all.
>
> Father James (who's gradually catching up with his correspondence)
>
> Monk James Silver
> Orthodox Church in America
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Randall Buth
> Date: Friday, May 18, 2007 7:04 am
> Subject: [B-Greek] Gender
> To: B-Greek
>
>>> (DW) I did ask, and thanks for the clarification. However, you
>> appear> to be begging the question when you say "Because that is what
>>> 'genders' are" and then present a rather nondescript
>> explanation as a
>>> standard definition. Also, I think your argument is a generalization
>>> of the particular, evidently to deal with gender oddities. It seems
>>> to solve nothing. You have simply acknowledged the oddities as
>>> inexplicable, and have attempted to generalize the terminology to
>>> account for that.
>>
>> Exactly. It appears that we might be in agreement.
>> 'Noun classes' are a generalization from a particular.
>> It deals with gender oddities. Howwever, while it does not
>> explain why
>> 'table' in Greek and Spanish is put in the same class as females,
>> while 'table' in Hebrew is put in the same class with males, [or Gr.
>> QALASSA female with Hb. YAM 'male', or Gr. HLIOS male with Hb.  
>> SHEMESH
>> f. etc etc etc], it does accomodate the randomness both within and
>> across languages. It also explains and accomodates why everything
>> asexual isn't lumped into 'neuter' in a three-nounclass system.
>> So, yes, this acknowledges the oddities as inexplicable.
>>
>> One note needs to be added: oddities in English sounds marginal,
>> something left-over that doesn't fit, while in fact, the  
>> inexplicables
>> and the randomness are the MAJORITY of the items. By far, the  
>> majority
>> of nouns in any 2-nounclass or 3-nounclass language do not have
>> inherent sex but are put into these grammatical classes in ways that
>> are unpredictable to any one language or language family. To be sure,
>> the random choices do tell us something, not too clear at all, about
>> how the choices might have been made, if we were on scene. Perhaps
>> 'table' in Greek was associated to food and life and life with  
>> females
>> and 'voila' table is in the class with females. Or maybe someone in
>> the distant past, tripped, said PEZA for 'footstand' instead of PODS
>> 'm. foot', thought it sounded nice with the 'A' at the end, which
>> stuck with others. Or just wanted a PEZA to be different from
>> POUS m.
>> Then followed up with (te)TRAPEZA and TR(I)APEZA (?). Meanwhile, in
>> Canaan some people were buying a fine SHULHAN from some traders and
>> called it masculine because it was a new thing and 'davar
>> Hadash' "new
>> thing" was masculine. And the first SHULHANOT m. (note the plural
>> formation!) were likely of `ETs 'wood m.' not EVEN 'stone f.!' Of
>> course, this is pure speculation, irrelevant, etc. The facts are
>> simply that Greek has tens of thousands of common nouns whose reasons
>> for categorization can only be guessed at. Ditto Hebrew. And Yes,
>> analogy worked within the systems so that somethings might snow-ball
>> and attract words into one class or another. Word shape, sound,
>> analogy, borrowings, unrecoverable unique events, etc., all played
>> their part in the coalescing of nouns into their various noun  
>> classes.
>> Once the -SIS nouns were put in the category with females, then other
>> -SIS nouns (ANAGNWSIS 'reading') were funneled that way, so that when
>> encountering a new -SIS word a learner knows which category it  
>> belongs
>> to. But the basic choice to make -SIS words and to group them in the
>> female class, that was fundamentally random, and not inherent to the
>> semantics. Linguists want a name that reflects that semantic
>> randomness when comparing languages across language families.
>> Linguists are also happy with calling things gender within a language
>> that has 2 or 3 grammatical noun classes. From that perspective  
>> gender
>> is a specific kind of grammatical nounclass.
>>
>> ...
>>> I also appreciate your effort in trying to deal with the
>>> problems of gender, even if I can't agree with your approach.
>> So I
>>> beg to agree to disagree.
>>
>> This isn't clear. I am having trouble understanding what there
>> is to
>> disagree with?
>>
>> Are we agreed that the majority of Greek nouns do not have inherent
>> sexuality, but acquire it, as it were, by being placed in a specific
>> noun class?
>>
>> blessings
>> Randall
>>
>> -- 
>> Randall Buth, PhD
>> www.biblicalulpan.org
>> χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
>> שלום לכם וברכות
>> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
>> randallbuth at gmail.com
>> ---
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>>
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